


-180 Seconds

by heartswells



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Dead Space Fusion (No Knowledge Necessary), Devotion, Engineer!Tyson, Gore, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Major Character Injury, Nurse!Alexander, Sacrifice, Sniper!JT, Survival as a Love Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26624248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartswells/pseuds/heartswells
Summary: [content warning: graphic depictions of injury, violence, horror, syringes (medical use only)]“Wait!” JT shoved Alexander behind him and backed them into a corner as he hoisted his rifle. “Tyson, get down!”Alexander strained as he listened for Tyson to reply, but he heard nothing, and his heart pounded at a dizzying rate as he feared the worst. The beam of the tactical light on JT’s rifle swung across the room wildly until it illuminated the necromorph’s mangled body where it was bent over what Alexander feared was Tyson’s dead body.After the USG Avalanche is ravaged by a monstrous alien invasion, Tyson Jost, JT Compher, and Alexander Kerfoot band together to fight for their survival. Amid a debilitating injury, the three must make their way through the ventilation system to search the ship's abandoned medical bay for supplies and save Tyson's life.
Relationships: J. T. Compher/Tyson Jost/Alexander Kerfoot
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	-180 Seconds

**Author's Note:**

> [content warning: graphic depictions of injury, violence, horror, syringes (medical use only)]
> 
> this fic is inspired by dead space, but it does not take place in the actual verse, and it is **not** necessary to know anything about the game! the aliens are described, but if you would like image references, [here is a necromorph](https://deadspace.fandom.com/wiki/Necromorphs) and [here are the swarmers!](https://deadspace.fandom.com/wiki/Swarmer)

The planks of wood barricading the ceiling vent crashed to the floor, and the room erupted into chaos as a necromorph scuttled out. Alexander was still so sleep-deprived and disoriented from their last reconnaissance when he woke that he tried to tug his blanket over his head and ignore the chaos—but a sudden pained cry from Tyson jolted him to his senses. Alexander stumbled as he stood and cursed the darkness as he struggled to discern where Tyson’s voice had come from.

  
  


“Wait!” JT shoved Alexander behind him and backed them into a corner as he hoisted his rifle. “Tyson, get down!”

  
  


Alexander strained as he listened for Tyson to reply, but he heard nothing, and his heart pounded at a dizzying rate as he feared the worst. The beam of the tactical light on JT’s rifle swung across the room wildly until it illuminated the necromorph’s mangled body where it was bent over what Alexander feared was Tyson’s dead body. Now alerted to their presence, it roared and charged towards them. JT fired off three bursts in rapid succession, and the necromorph collapsed into a disgusting heap of rotten ex-human flesh and sharp limbs.

  
  


“Tyson, are you alright?” JT called out, scanning his light across the floor of the storage unit that they were using as a hideout. 

  
  


“Oh fuck, Tyson, your _leg_.” JT gasped when his light landed on Tyson. He dashed towards him, leaping over the necromorph’s carcass to kneel next to Tyson where he was sprawled on the floor. Alexander grimaced as he glimpsed the gruesome state of Tyson’s right leg and went to fetch his backpack before joining them.

  
  


“JT, board the vent back up,” Alexander said as he knelt next to Tyson’s injured leg and pulled a flashlight from his bag. JT clenched his jaw and stared into Tyson’s injury, struggling to leave his partner in such a vulnerable and pained state.

  
  


“We need to stop more necromorphs from getting in,” Alexander reminded him gently.

  
  


“I’m okay, JT,” Tyson reassured when JT still didn’t respond. JT exhaled slowly and hesitantly rose to fix the vent. 

  
  


Alexander kneeled down next to Tyson and rummaged through his bag for his sewing kit and his first aid kit; little remained except bandages, flu syrup, a couple inches of thread, and a needle. 

  
  


“Can you hold the flashlight for me?” Alexander asked. 

  
  


“Yeah, it doesn’t hurt that bad.” Tyson tried to lie as he reached for the flashlight, but there was a violent tremor in his grasp, and the way that he hurriedly reassured Alexander of a question that he hadn’t yet been asked confirmed to Alexander that he was actually in horrible pain. 

  
  


Alexander pulled a pair of embroidery scissors from his sewing kit and began snipping away the mangled fabric on Tyson’s pant leg, doing his best not to irritate the wound.

“Can’t we at least move him off of the floor?” JT asked as he finished boarding up the vent and returned to Tyson’s side. JT was stressed by his inability to take away Tyson’s pain and desperate to find a way to ease it.

  
  


“Not yet. We don’t want to agitate the injury anymore than necessary.” JT huffed and sat down above Tyson. He lifted Tyson’s head and rested it in his lap and took the flashlight from Tyson’s hold with every bit of tenderness he could produce. JT winced as Alexander finished cutting away the fabric of Tyson’s pants leg to reveal the grizzly details of his injury and covered Tyson’s eyes with his free hand. 

  
  


“It’s my own leg, man,” Tyson mumbled as Alexander pulled off the belt from his nursing uniform and fastened it tightly around Tyson’s upper thigh as a makeshift tourniquet. However, the jab came out strained, and Tyson found solace in the steady warmth of JT’s palm against his skin, and he cherished the innocence of JT’s desire to abate his pain, so he closed his eyes and allowed himself to be shielded from his own reality. JT’s eyes flickered between Tyson and Alexander’s face; Alexander, for his part, was trying to remain as unreadable as possible while he examined Tyson’s thigh. 

  
  


“You can fix it, right?” JT asked. Alexander sighed. It was a strangely naïve question, but Alexander had always found JT to be naïve, a particularly odd trait for someone of JT’s military caliber and even odder for someone enduring what was essentially an alien apocalypse. 

  
  


“I’m a nurse,” he answered. Which was to say, he would _try_. 

  
  


The necromorphs, from what Alexander understood, were the revived, mutated corpses of deceased humans. Their flesh was rotten, scabbed, puss-filled, and decaying, and their abdomens were torn open, their vital organs spilling out. They walked on two legs reminiscent of the humans they once were, and from their backs, sharp, angular limbs jutted out that they used to cut down prey. They were extraordinarily aggressive and possessed insatiable appetites that lusted for all living things. 

  
  


The necromorph that had broken through the vent had torn a deep, messy gash through Tyson’s upper right thigh with one of it’s knifelike arms. The injury was ghastly, and it had been torn messily so that the depth of the cut was jagged. Tyson had gained other various scrapes and bruises from the attack, but they seemed mostly inconsequential in comparison to his leg. 

  
  


Alexander was worried. They were severely lacking in proper medical supplies, and the necrotic flesh of the necromorph guaranteed infection. Additionally, Alexander wasn’t sure what caused people to become necromorphs. He didn’t know if humans were revived as monsters after death or if they were born of an infection. And if so, was Tyson infected? 

  
  


They needed to access the medical bay. They had no sanitary bandages, no antibiotics, not even enough thread in their sewing kit to attempt stitching. If they could access the pharmaceutical unit, then he could obtain _asclepius serum_ , an advanced regenerative medication that would allow Tyson to heal entirely in minutes. In the apocalyptic world of their ship, Tyson wouldn’t be able to survive long with such a debilitating injury, even with Alexander and JT’s best efforts to protect him. They needed that serum; they needed Tyson.

  
  


“How far is the medical bay from here?” Alexander asked as he rummaged through his bag in search of a clean shirt to tear into bandages. All of his shirts were filthy, but he found the cleanest he could and began shredding it. He considered stitching it as much as he could, but the sutures would likely not hold with movement and would do more damage ripping apart than if they weren’t there at all. 

  
  


“It’s close. I could make a supply raid while you two wait,” JT said, pulling the map from their bag.

  
  


“You won’t be able to access the pharmaceutical unit; the security system requires fingerprints.” Alexander paused and then sighed, disheartened. “I’m not sure even I’ll be able to access what we need with only my nursing accreditation.”

  
  


“I made the security system, remember?” Tyson interrupted. He could easily override any lock in the medical bay. Alexander remained hesitant, not wishing to include Tyson in any risky situations while so vulnerable. 

  
  
  


“We can’t stay here much longer anyway. The necromorphs know where we are now,” JT said. 

  
  


“They don’t have advanced intelligence,” Alexander snorted. He and JT held very different opinions about the intellectual capabilities of the necromorphs. JT viewed them as an enemy, capable of motivation and memory. Alexander viewed them as primitive animals that acted only on instinct. (The greatest difference, in Alexander’s opinion, was that his belief stemmed from scientific observations, and JT’s stemmed from his imagination.)

  
  


“We can’t stay here,” JT maintained. 

  
  


“You guys should move on without me,” Tyson said. At best, he was deadweight; at worst, he was necromorph _bait_. They knew so little about the necromorphs. Collectively, they all believed that the necromorphs were capable of seeing and hearing, but could they smell as well? Would Tyson—injured, weak, and covered in blood— _attract_ them? Would he merely slow them down or would he cause them all to be hunted and killed? 

  
  


“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alexander snapped, irritated that Tyson would even suggest that he and JT abandon him to die. Their fates were intertwined. 

  
  


“We can travel through the vents,” JT said. “It’ll be safer.”

  
  


“Safer? There’s necromorphs in there too,” Alexander said skeptically. 

  
  


“Tyson can’t walk well now. We won’t be able to run or defend ourselves. If we’re in the ventilation system, it will be a closed space, and we’ll only need to guard two areas: ahead of us and behind us. We can put Tyson in between us. Then we’ll be able to drop right down into the med bay.”

  
  


“We need to go soon. Tyson may be infected,” Alexander said. JT nodded, trying to quickly formulate a plan that would ensure their survival.

  
  


“Alexander, would you rather go first or last? If we get attacked from behind, will you be able to hold it down?”

  
  


“I don’t know, but you’re the better fighter. You should go first in case there are necromorphs where we drop down.” Alexander had learned to wield a weapon by necessity, but he wasn’t a member of the military like JT, and he lacked the weaponry training that Tyson possessed as an engineer. He was the weakest of the group in combat, even if his medical knowledge was the only reason they were all still alive.

  
  


“Are you sure?”

  
  


“Yes.”

  
  


👾 👾 👾

  
  
  


Although the ventilation system provided a speedier route to their destination and a defensive tactical advantage, it did not enable them to be stealthy. As they shimmied through the cramped tunnels, their breathing echoed, and their movements thudded and thundered.

  
  


Tyson was struggling. The process of lifting him into the vents had further torn his wound, and it continued to further tear as he dragged his injured leg behind him, pulling himself forward through the tunnels with his elbows and pushing off with his uninjured leg. Though Alexander had done his best to wrap the bandages thickly and provide some cushioning, continuous friction against the rough steel was further opening and deepening the cut, and Tyson was bleeding through his bandages, leaving a trail of agony in his wake. Alexander’s hands and clothing sopped up Tyson’s blood as he followed him, and he ached for the pain Tyson was enduring.

  
  


The echo of their breathing was so loud that JT didn’t notice the swarmers approaching until they were climbing onto his hands.

  
  


“Fuck! There’s swarmers! Smash them!” JT shouted. He smashed one against the wall and it’s brittle bones crumbled beneath his fist.

  
  


The swarmers reminded JT of small hands or starfish; they scuttled forward in hordes on finger-like legs and covered their prey, devouring them alive with a million mouths and teeth. 

  
  


JT did his best to wildly flail his body and his hands and crush or injure as many of the swarmers as he could to protect Tyson, but they were numerous, and many still managed to clamber over JT and assault Tyson. Alexander reached up as far as he could and pulled them off of Tyson’s back and arms. Their hands, their clothing, the walls, and the floor were soon covered in snapped bones, the dark gelatinous goo that was assumedly the swarmers’ blood, and flakes of the swarmers’ rotten skin as they smashed and crushed and killed, and smashed and crushed and killed. By the time the last swarmer had been killed, they were covered in scratches and small, circular bite marks.

  
  


“Is everyone alright?” Alexander asked through ragged breaths. 

  
  


“Confirmed,” JT answered.

  
  


“Mhm,” Tyson mumbled weakly. He slumped forward and wrapped his arms around the back of JT’s legs, resting his cheek on JT’s back and closing his eyes. They needed to move—there was no way the necromorphs hadn’t heard their fight—but Alexander reached forward and rested a soothing hand on Tyson’s waist and allowed him a moment to rest. Tyson was in excruciating pain and he was becoming feverish from it, and neither JT nor Alexander could muster the cruelty to deny their survivor a moment of comfort.

  
  


Twenty minutes after they began crawling again, they reached an opening where several tunnels met and ended together, signaling to JT that they were right above the entrance to the medical bay. The medical bay operated on a separate ventilation system, in case it was necessary to quarantine the unit from the rest of the ship, so they would have to drop down and walk the rest of the way. Currently, they were above what functioned as the ship’s ER waiting room. JT pulled a small laser cutter from his pocket and sliced through the lock holding the vent door closed. 

  
  


“Wait for my signal,” JT said, before dropping down. The motion detecting lights came to life as he hoisted his rifle and scanned the room, ready to fire. It was quiet. Nothing emerged.

  
  


“Clear,” he called. 

  
  


Tyson looked down and grimaced.

  
  


“I _will_ catch you.” JT swore, staring up at Tyson with grim determination. Tyson closed his eyes and dropped down, bracing for pain. True to his word, JT did catch him in safe, solid arms, but the pain that overcame him as his leg was bent in JT’s grasp was blinding and he failed to bite down his yell. When he opened his eyes, Alexander was next to him, a soothing hand brushing away his tears.

  
  


Alexander glanced around the waiting room; it was in disarray. Memories of his last night working the bay threatened to overflow, but Alexander took a deep breath and centered himself. Yesterdays were meaningless in an apocalypse; that night stopped mattering the moment it ended. Alexander pulled out his nursing ID and swiped it through the door lock, and they entered a long hallway. He wrapped Tyson around his shoulder and led him forward as JT crept besides them, ready to defend against an attack.

  
  


It was eerily empty. 

  
  


The hospital storage room was located at the very end of the hallway, and Alexander planned on filling his bag with all that he could. But there was also the chance that they weren’t the first ones there, that it had already been ruined and ransacked. That there would be nothing there, and that Tyon would—

  
  


Alexander swiped his ID and pressed his thumb against the verifier. The buzzer glowed green, and Alexander walked into _survival._

  
  


Bandages, gauzes, tapes, syringes, suture kits, antibiotics, vitamins, pain killers, flu syrups galore surrounded him, and at the far wall stood a tall glass cabinet packed with glistening vials of high security medications—including _asclepius serum_.

  
  


“That’s what we need to get into,” Alexander said. Tyson nodded as Alexander helped him to the security monitor by the cabinet.

  
  


“Just a few minutes,” Tyson promised.

  
  


JT stood in the center of the room, eyes and ears vigilantly awaiting an attack. Alexander left Tyson to work and went about the room, knocking in various medications and supplies into his bag. He made sure to leave behind a portion of each supply and to maintain the storage room’s organization, so that either they or other lucky survivors would be able to return and replenish their supplies. He placed a packaged syringe in his pocket to use while treating Tyson.

  
  


Tyson was a highly-skilled and accomplished engineer. He had designed much of the ship’s security system himself during its commissioning, and then he had remained on board as the head engineer. He shouldn’t have had any problem overriding the lock—except he was in unbearable pain, and his hands were shaking from exertion.

  
  


The alarm blared so loudly that Alexander dropped his bag.

  
  


“Fuck! We need to go!” Tyson shouted in a panic. The alarm sounded for a mandatory three minutes, to ensure that thieves would not be able to disable it before they were caught. 

  
  


“No! Finish! I’ll hold them off!” JT shouted. Alexander returned to Tyson’s side, ripping open a syringe package as he prepared to instantly inject Tyson with the serum.

  
  


The first necromorph burst through the vent and JT shot it down before it hit the floor. On the other side of the door, they could hear a mob of necromorphs screeching as they rammed their bodies at the wall, deranged with hunger.

  
  


Tyson overrode the lock and the cabinet door swung open. Alexander yanked a vial of _asclepius serum_ off of the top shelf. He made no attempt to measure; he just filled up the syringe and injected it directly into Tyson’s leg.

  
  


Tyson gasped. The experience of accelerated healing was bizarre and painful. Skin, muscle, and bone dissolved and rematerialized, overwhelming him with debilitatingly powerful sensations of stinging, itching, burning, and aching all at once. But then suddenly, he was okay. He was strong, scarless, and energized, reborn where he stood. He met JT’s eyes and could feel the relief pouring from him. Tyson wanted to kiss them both and thank them for saving him with the proof of his living breath against their face, but first they needed to survive. 

  
  


Tyson grabbed his plasma cutter and backed up towards JT and Alexander. He shot the arm off of an injured necromorph that was crawling across the floor towards Alexander, and then maneuvered himself so that Alexander was sandwiched between him and JT, protected, because although Alexander wasn’t a bad shot, he wasn’t a good one either, and he was a treasure to Tyson and JT that they could not bear to lose. 

  
  


The necromorphs were pouring out of the ceiling vent in mobs, seething and hungry, and Tyson was not sure the door would continue to hold against the monsters outside.

  
  


JT was shouting directions, asking Alexander to build a fire.

  
  


Tyson wondered if they had all died in an attempt to save him.

  
  


177 seconds.

  
  


178 seconds.

  
  


179 seconds.

  
  


The alarm stopped.

  
  


Alexander pulled a box of matches from his backpack and smashed a bottle of isopropyl sterilizer against the door.

  
  


Death wasn’t an option. 

  
  


They wanted to love each other, and to love, they needed to survive.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this fic nonstop since April, originally intending for it to fill someone's pucking rare promt. I was really disappointed to miss the deadline, honestly. That being said, I had SO much fun writing this fic. I have never written action before, so this was a huge challenge and learned experience. My endless thanks to Mo, as always, for all your support and encouragement.
> 
> If you'd like to see more in the verse, please let me know! I built an elaborate universe in my head, and I have a ton of ideas that I'd like to explore with various avs. feel free to chat with me [tumblr](https://braydenonpoint.tumblr.com/) as well! sending lots of love! — P xoxo


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